A place where beginners can participate, ask questions, and post their views. However, beginners typically ask a lot of questions about sources, tricks, books, and so on. In fact, all magicians are interested (or should be) in the provenance of tricks, ideas, and related matters. This department will service these needs.

I was wondering if anybody had (or could point me in the direction of) general information about the Topsy-Turvy Cards that appear in The Royal Road to Card Magic. I noticed that it is very similar to Tenkai's Reverse Cards Mystery in Tarbell vol. 1.

Specifically I was wondering:

The name of the sleight that is used in the trick and who invented it?

I don't know who invented this, but a similar Reverse is in Card College 2, page 372, "Deck Turnover Reverse". Here the deck is turned side for side instead of end for end. No credit is given there, either.

This reverse (can't remember now if it's the sideways version or the end-for-end version) is described in The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley Vol. 2 as part of the trick "Jubilee". The references given are Hatton and Plate (Magician's Tricks and How they are Done) and Neal Elias/Bert Fenn (for the sideways version, described in At the Table Tricks). I checked there but neither Hatton & Plate (1910) nor Elias (1946) mentions any earlier source.